The announcement coincides with the launch by the company of a TCO calculator, which shows – according to the company - that these savings could be achieved through “reduced failure rates and extended use.”
Panasonic general manager Jan Kaempfer said: “Due to the superior design - and investment in protection - rugged devices often cost more than a traditional notebook or laptop.
“As the evidence clearly shows however, the return on investment quickly pays-off - in year one for tablet and handheld devices, and year two for notebooks. The challenge is in convincing IT decision makers to pay now, and save later.”
Panasonic’s claim is informed by research commissioned by the company, looking at the experiences of IT decision-makers at nearly 1,000 organisations. This found that over the course of a year, about 18% of a company's notebooks need repair of some kind, the majority of which is to do with accidental damage.
A spokesperson for Panasonic said: “Respondents reported spending an average of £1,075 per non-rugged notebook and £1,616 per rugged notebook. A look at the annual device failure rates and the average per-incident repair cost of £2,775 shows that the ROI for rugged devices is achieved by the second year of the non-rugged device.”
